The National Urban Self-Reliance & Preparedness Program Begins!

After a long period of planning and set-up, along with many trials and tribulations, the National (and Global) Urban Self-Reliance and Preparedness Program (N.U.S.R.P.) is finally underway. The principal organizer Aton Edwards feels confident that he has enough support to achieve what he calls “a critical mass of activity” that can set off “a chain reaction of events” that will “sweep across the nation” and help to assemble the nation’s first civilian operated self-reliance and emergency preparedness and response collective. Edwards has enlisted the aid of a diverse group of high-profile activists, celebrities and politicians to help spread the word and generate interest in this historic project.

The goals of the N.U.S.R.P. program as Edwards states are, “to provide civilian populations in urban areas with the tools that allow them to go off grid, that is, becoming less dependent on — and for some, completely independent of their power utility companies, gas stations and, for homeowners with even minimal amounts of property, grocery stores!”

Aton with New Orleans Activists At Recent Special Event Promoting N.U.S.R.P.

The program also includes a special set of emergency preparedness protocols that will help participants to mitigate and respond to the full range of natural, technological, environmental, and civil disasters ranging from nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism to earthquakes, pandemics, floods etc. “The program,” as Edwards calls it, even includes special directives for dealing with the fallout from our growing global economic, food and water crisis. In addition to all this, Edwards has designed a full range of materials and equipment to be deployed in the effort. “I wanted to make certain that this program was completely different and more effective than anything ever attempted before” he says. “The special equipment and directives we have give this a range that surpasses anything else that has ever been offered before and, it has a mass appeal that I know people will respond to.”

The focus of N.U.S.R.P. is on low-income urban areas such as the 9th ward district in New Orleans that was shattered by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. Edwards says that “these areas are under-served by the federal government and have special needs that only a program like this can address properly.” “You’ve got to be able to reach the people who live in these communities, and I know we have the way.” “For example, hip-hop music is a potent force and information pipeline that we plan to tap into to get our message across.” “It will help us recruit volunteers and, build a foundation.” Edwards has enlisted the aid of hip-hop legends Chuck-D & Afrika Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation along with a number of national & local area radio stations such as his home base 98.7 KISS-FM “Open Line” show,

Aton live With His KISS-FM Open Line Family, Bob Slade, James M’tume, Judge Bob Pickett, Fatiyn Muhammad

Chuck-D’s Air America program “On the Real,”

Imhotep Gary Byrd, and many other radio & TV shows across the nation to help create a Hip-Hop collective and electronic and cyber grapevine that will help to achieve this. Edwards says he is quite happy about the Zulu Nation’s participation as they have been informing the public about these issues for many years. He adds, “I’m also brainstorming with a number of music and television producers about creating a “We Are The World” type music video that can help us to call attention to, and raise money for the effort.”

He is also reaching out to Native American leaders from several nations to create special programs for the impoverished “reservations” along with several high-profile country music stars that can help him reach out to people in communities such as the thousand mile long Appalachian region that extends from New York to Mississippi where intense poverty is still quite pervasive. “Strangely enough, country and Hip-Hop are quite similar” he says. “Like Hip-Hop, country offers listeners a straight-from-the-heart & gut no-nonsense treatment of life that resonates with its fans.

Edwards says, “We can’t afford anymore Katrina-like tragedies, because the consequences are far too painful to experience again.” “We also must rapidly prepare for the wide ranging destructive effects of global warming and the world economic crisis. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better and at this point, if you aren’t preparing to face it, you will fall victim to it.” Once the national infrastructure is set in place, Edwards also plans to deploy the N.U.S.R.P. counterpart, the Global Urban Self-Reliiance & Preparedness program in the Caribbean, a number of African & Southern Asian countries and other areas around the world that lack similar infrastructures. Edwards says, “if they have the will, we have the way”

For more information about the N.U.S.R.P. programs, contact theprograminfo@readyforanything.org or, call 212 591-0830.

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